


Take a Break

by TheRainbowElectric



Series: MadUndergradScientist!Hamilton AU [1]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alex is an overworked mess, Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst with a Happy Ending, But John takes care of him, Developing Relationship, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Non-Sexual Intimacy, this is honestly the fluffiest thing I've ever written
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-15 09:48:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29187333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheRainbowElectric/pseuds/TheRainbowElectric
Summary: It’s easy to see Alex as a loud mouthed know-it-all. It takes time and attention to understand Alex for what he actually is: an overworked MacArthur-Grant-in-the-making who’s not used to anyone listening unless he raises his voice — a product of skipping too many grades, living with simultaneously overbearing and distant foster parents, and Alex’s own impossible standards for himself.Most people don’t take the time to find out that Alex isn't only devoted to his work. That Alex is the kind of friend who would spend five hours helping John sort through the hundreds of pages of government documents from a FOIA request. That Alex is the kind of boyfriend who would visit practically every comic book store in Boston to find that one issue ofTMNTthat John casually mentioned was his childhood favorite, so he could give it to John for his birthday.Alex is one of the best people John knows. He cares so much,aboutso much — and he’s so easy to care about, given the chance.Alex suffers exam week stress, and John takes care of him.
Relationships: Alexander Hamilton/John Laurens
Series: MadUndergradScientist!Hamilton AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2142876
Comments: 4
Kudos: 38





	Take a Break

“You need to come get your boy from the library.”

John, who was nodding off over his Media Analytics study guide before taking Angelica’s call, sits up. “What?”

“The Writing Center closes at _eleven_ ,” Angelica says. “Do you know what time it is?”

John has no idea. What even _is_ time, during finals week? He checks his phone. 11:17. “Shit.”

Lafayette and Hercules look up from their textbooks as John sandwiches his phone between cheek and shoulder to gather his things.

“I’m on my way,” John says, sliding his laptop into his backpack. “Be there in fifteen.”

“Ten,” Angelica says, and hangs up on him.

“What’s up?” Herc says.

John snaps a photo of the whiteboard where he and Laf have been pooling review notes. “Alex.”

“Ah,” Laf says knowingly. “Who is _le petit pétard_ menacing this evening?”

“Eliza,” John says. “Writing Center appointment.”

“Ah,” Laf says again, dismissive this time. “I would not worry, then.”

While it is true that Eliza is more tolerant of Alex’s… Alexness than probably anyone but John, Angelica is highly _in_ tolerant of people bothering her sister. If Alex is keeping Eliza from her own studies — John should hurry.

The library is full of students when John arrives, nose cold and breath heavy from jogging across campus. The first floor is humming with conversation among study partners and group projects, but as John approaches the back, the familiar pitch of Alex’s fast, anxious chatter rises above the noise. John ignores the people sitting closest to the Writing Center, who are throwing irritated looks at the door, as he slips inside.

Angelica has apparently made herself comfortable at the front desk while waiting to pick Eliza up from work. She puts her Investigative Journalism textbook down and greets John with a _my sister does not get paid enough for this_ look.

“Thanks for calling,” John says.

Angelica shrugs. “I was about to go in there, but I figured you’d be nicer about it.”

“Thanks,” John says again, and nudges open the door to the room where Alex and Eliza are working.

John only met Alex in August, so this is the first time he’s witnessed Alex undergo exam stress. Last week shaped up about as John expected: Alex all but moved into the library, taking brief power naps beneath the table of his study room and eagerly accepting all the cups of coffee — secretly cut with decaf — that John brought by.

(It’s impossible to study in the same room as Alex, who thinks best while mumbling aloud to himself, but John will support him with _reasonable_ amounts of caffeine when possible.)

This week, Alex sat all his exams on Monday and Tuesday and still seemed — essentially fine? Typical, sleep-deprived, studious Alex, just dialed up to an eleven.

Eliza even told John, offhand-but-not-really, that this was the least frazzled she’d ever seen Alex during an exam week.

That was Tuesday evening. John has spent almost every waking moment of the two days since in the comm building, studying and taking his own exams. He hasn’t had much contact with Alex besides a few texts, but he wasn’t worried. All Alex had to do before break was incorporate some revisions into the paper he’s submitting to _Nature Biotech_ in January. John figured that Alex, being both an extremely prolific writer and the one who did the whole damn experiment, would have his edits hammered out in a matter of hours.

Clearly, John miscalculated.

John’s entry cuts Alex off mid-sentence, and he looks up at John with eyes red-rimmed and shadowed with exhaustion. Bunches of hair are pulled loose from his ponytail, and John knows that’s the same sweatshirt he left Alex in on Tuesday because it belongs to John. The whole table is covered in papers, and Alex is holding a chewed-up pen aloft.

John hasn’t seen Alex in such furious disarray since September. He wonders how much Alex has left the lab — or talked to anyone besides Jefferson or Madison — in the last forty-eight hours.

“Alex. Eliza.” John sits down across from them.

“John,” says Eliza, looking deeply relieved.

Alex looks confused. “What are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” John says. “Eliza’s shift ended half an hour ago.”

“What?” Alex blinks rapidly at the clock on the wall. “No, no, _no_.” He digs the heels of his hands into his eyes. “Fuck, I wasted so much time. We’re not even through the _introduction_ — ”

“Alex,” Eliza says, kind but tired, “you made excellent progress tonight. You’ve brainstormed a lot of different structures that — ”

“But none of them is _right_ ,” Alex says, rifling through his spread of papers. “I just need to see — where are Washington’s notes?”

“Alex,” Eliza says.

“No, don’t — don’t go. I can figure this out. I _can_. I just need — ”

“Alex,” John says.

Alex plucks a folded-up paper from the mess and flattens it, smoothing out the creases on the edge of the table. “The most important thing he wanted was an explanation of the closed-loop control system higher. But I don’t know how I’m supposed to explain what that _is_ until we get to the section on deep-brain stimulation — ”

“Alex,” John repeats.

“ — unless we put something totally generic in the first paragraph, which _completely_ contradicts Dr. Slater’s comments — ”

“Alex.”

“ — and would interrupt the definition of what a brain-machine interface is in the _first_ place, which is kind of fucking important if you’re going to — ”

“ _Alex_.”

“ _What?_ ”

Alex glares at John, who briefly considers snatching the paper out of Alex’s hand. But that seems like the way Thomas Jefferson would handle this situation — and John has found that usually the best way to deal with Alex’s temper is to think, _What would Thomas Jefferson do?_ and then do the exact opposite.

“Please stop,” John says.

“I _can’t_ ,” Alex says through his teeth.

“Why not?”

“Because I need to finish my revisions.”

“You need to take a break.”

Alex scowls. “What I _need_ is to rewrite three sections of a paper based on contradictory notes from eight coauthors — most of which I haven’t even gotten to yet, because I can’t figure out how to write a simple fucking introduction, because this stupid experiment crosses a dozen different disciplines, so how the hell am I supposed to make any kind of concise — ”

Alex is the one to cut himself off this time, grabbing fistfuls of his hair and holding them taut. He glares down at the table, chin trembling.

John sighs. He should’ve known it wasn’t the revisions, exactly, that had tied Alex up in knots. Alex is a damn good editor. John has comments on several of his own English papers to prove it. And when Alex gets too in-his-head about how to structure something, talking it out with Eliza usually helps. But with something as important as this — with so many competing people to please — of course Alex has turned himself in circles and gotten tangled up in his own self-conscious neuroses.

John looks at Eliza. “Give us a minute?”

Eliza nods and stands. She holds her hand over Alex’s shoulder for a second, thinks better of it, and closes the door quietly on her way out.

“I’m not going home,” Alex says to the table. “Eliza doesn’t have to stay, but I’m finishing this tonight.”

“It’ll get done,” John says. “It doesn’t have to be tonight.”

“Yes, it does.”

“Why?”

“Because — ” Alex’s fingers tighten in his hair. “Because I’ve been working on it _all day_ and gotten nowhere. I’ve wasted so much time and it’s _still not right_ — ”

“Alex. Sweetheart.”

John refuses to be anything but calm. If there’s one thing he has learned from being Alex’s friend for two months and his boyfriend for most of a third, it’s this: The only way to deal with a force as unstoppable as Alexander Hamilton is to be as immovable an object as possible.

“Can you look at me?” John says. “Please.”

When Alex does, he’s on the verge of tears and furiously pretending not to be.

John’s chest tightens, but he smiles. “Thank you. Can you give me your hands?” He holds his own out on the table.

Alex hesitates, then extricates his fingers from his hair and takes John’s hands. John rubs his thumbs across the ridges Alex’s knuckles to soothe his tremors.

“Tonight was not a waste of time,” John says. “All the hours you’ve spent thinking about this paper will lead to better revisions, even if you haven’t changed a single word yet.”

This is important to remind Alex, who measures effort not in time spent, but results produced — and whose quota for his own output is practically infinite.

“You’ll think more clearly after eating something and getting some sleep,” John adds.

Alex pulls one of his hands back to rub his eyes with the sleeve of John’s sweatshirt. For all his stubbornness, Alex is pretty easy to overwhelm with the slightest bit of patience.

“How about this,” John says. “We head back to my place, eat, sleep, and come back first thing tomorrow with coffee.”

Alex likes pretty much any plan that involves coffee.

He sniffs and wipes snot on the forearm of his sleeve. John forgives him.

“Won’t that bother Laf and Herc?”

“They’re still studying in the comm building.”

Alex looks suspicious. “Should _you_ still be studying in the comm building?”

“Not if we’re coming back here first thing in the morning,” John says. “Seven?”

“Six,” Alex says.

John rolls his eyes. “Fine.”

A few hours of sleep is better than none, which is exactly how many Alex will get if he feels like it’s being forced on him.

Alex casts one more forlorn look around at his papers. John squeezes his hand. Alex squeezes back. “Fine,” he says. “Let’s go.”

While Alex collects his things, John digs a spare hat out of his backpack. It was Peggy’s Secret Santa gift to him last year — bright fuchsia, extremely warm and topped with an enormous pom-pom. John puts it on Alex’s head, because if Alex doesn’t want a lecture about walking around Boston in December with only a sweatshirt on, he is at least going to get a beanie. John kisses the irritated look off Alex’s face, leaving him almost as pink as the hat.

On their way out of the Writing Center, Alex thanks Eliza and offers a stiff, embarrassed apology — mostly directed at the floor — for keeping her so late. Eliza, in typical Eliza fashion, just smiles and reminds Alex that he’s welcome to come back during her normal work hours tomorrow. John mouths a _thank you_ to Eliza behind Alex’s back before following him out the door.

On their way out of the library, John positions himself between Alex and the couple of nearby students who shoot him dirty looks for all the noise. John understands their frustration. It’s easy to look at Alex and see a loud-mouthed brat. That’s what John saw, back when Angelica first assigned John to profile Alex for the student magazine in August. And even Eliza admits that her first impression of Alex was, “It’s amazing an ego that big fits inside a person that small.”

It takes time and attention to see Alex for what he actually is: an overwrought, overworked MacArthur-Grant-in-the-making who’s not used to anyone listening unless he raises his voice — a product of skipping too many grades, living with simultaneously overbearing and distant foster parents, and Alex’s own impossible standards for himself.

Most people don’t take the time to find out that Alex is so obsessed with building brain-machine interfaces because he’s trying to create a new generation of devices to help people with treatment-resistant psychiatric disorders. Or that his tenacity isn’t only reserved for his own research. That Alex is the kind of friend who would spend five hours helping John sort through the hundreds of pages of government documents he got in response to a FOIA request for Investigative Journalism. That Alex is the kind of boyfriend who would visit practically every comic book store in Boston to find that one issue of _Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles_ that John casually mentioned was his childhood favorite, so he could give it to John for his birthday.

Alex is one of the best people John knows. He cares so much, _about_ so much — and he’s so easy to care about, given the chance.

They go to Alex’s place first to pick up stuff for him to sleep at John’s, as well as a coat (“seriously, what the fuck, Alex”). Alex’s dorm is dead quiet, all the students left in the common room studying with dire intent, so John can clearly hear Alex’s soft noise of displeasure when they arrive at his room to find a Tupperware container on the doorstep. A notecard taped neatly to the top is labeled with today’s date and the words “ _spinach pie_.”

“Burr,” Alex says with narrowed eyes.

John will be the first one to admit he does not understand Alex and Burr’s friendship, such as it is. The two shared most of their core biology classes, and Burr is the only person Alex has ever trusted to swap notes. Burr is to biochem what Alex is to neurosci. But that’s about where the similarities end. Burr has a scientist’s mind but a politician’s smile. He’s not only head of the biology club, but also a member of the student council and vice president of his fraternity. Everyone likes Burr.

Alex can’t stand it.

He also can’t stand Burr’s supposed condescension — bringing Alex leftovers as a reminder to eat, telling him to be polite to representatives at the internship fair, threatening to get the R.A. to unlock Alex’s door if he fails to emerge from his room for an entire weekend again.

(“He thinks he’s so much better than me,” Alex says. “I get it. We _all_ get it, Burr.”)

John supposes it is possible that Burr gets some kind of weird ego boost from being a helicopter hall mate. But John more suspects that Burr treats Alex the way he does because to know Alex is to know that he is a practically unparalleled case of self-neglect.

Perhaps the starkest illustration of that neglect is Alex’s dorm room, which is somehow — but actually, _how_ — in worse shape than when John last saw it a couple weeks ago. He and Alex spend most of their time at John’s apartment, where there is more light and space and company — the latter being a perk, rather than a deterrent, now that Herc’s warm big-brother teasing and Laf’s sunny doting have overcome Alex’s fearful distrust of any guy much bigger or stronger than he is. Which is, frankly, most guys.

Now there is a fleece blanket in John’s living room that is unofficially Alex’s, on account of how often he walks around with it draped over his shoulders. There’s a mug reading “ _snap out of it babe, you’ve got a world to take over”_ that Alex has also unofficially claimed by filling it with coffee at all odd hours of the day and night.

Alex’s dorm room, on the other hand, is an uncomfortable juxtaposition of bare and cluttered. The lack of personal effects made more sense once John learned how much Alex moved around as a kid. The walls are practically naked, except for a card from Eliza congratulating Alex on getting his first paper accepted to _Science_ last year, and a thank-you note from Dr. Washington’s son for Alex’s help on a science fair project — both of which are taped up over Alex’s bed.

The bare walls stand out against the junk that clutters nearly every other surface of the room. Alex’s bed and floor are strewn with either discarded clothing or clean laundry that Alex hasn’t had time to put away. His desk is littered with crumpled papers and empty takeout boxes. The dresser is piled with a mix of toiletries and dirty dishes.

It’s incredible that the person who lives here is the one who keeps all his belongings neatly confined to his backpack beside the door when staying overnight at John’s place — who cleans his dishes immediately after use and makes the bed if John gets up first.

(John once asked Alex why he didn’t bother to clean up his own room. Alex just shrugged and said, “Doesn’t seem worth it, when I’m the only one who has to live there.”)

Alex tosses Burr’s Tupperware container onto his bed and starts loading his backpack with clothing from what John hopes is the clean pile, if one exists. While Alex packs, John absently tidies, stuffing garbage from the desk into a stray CVS bag, since the trash can is full. But he pauses in reaching for a crushed ball of loose leaf when he notices a Post-It stuck to the desk. In Alex’s spiky scribble, it reads, “ _don’t forget to eat, dumbass._ ”

A quick survey of the room reveals more sticky notes. One on the side of the dresser says, “ _WC 10pm — do NOT be late again_.” Another stuck to the door: “ _book your goddamn train ticket!_ ”

The first time John saw those kinds of messages around Alex’s room, he was confused. The single bed in Alex’s dorm precluded the existence of a roommate who might leave rude notes around. John wondered whether Alex was friends with some asshole he didn’t know about. He wondered what it would take to make that person stay the fuck away from Alex forever.

It’s weird to think of a time — weird to think it was only a few months ago — that John knew so little about Alex.

“Alex.” John peels “ _don’t forget to eat, dumbass_ ” off the desk and holds it up.

“I know,” Alex says, drawing his shoulders up. “I _said_ I’d eat at yours — ”

“Not that.” John crushes the note in his fist and strips another off the desk: “ _take out your fucking garbage_.” “I mean these.”

“Oh.” Alex turns away from John — away from a conversation they’ve had before.

John puts the trash bag down and crosses the room. He takes Alex’s shoulders and, with gentle force, makes him turn to look John in the eye. Alex is wearing an expression of surly guilt, but John can’t tell whether that’s because he _knows_ how fucked up his notes-to-self are, or just because he knows John doesn’t like them.

“No one should talk to you like that,” John says. “Even you.”

“I know,” Alex says, even though he obviously doesn’t.

For being the smartest person John has ever met, Alex can be really dumb sometimes. He somehow doesn’t see the irony in calling himself horrible names all the time, when just last week, Alex was ready to take the T across Boston and throw hands with John’s dad because he called one of John’s student newspaper articles a “silly teenage puff piece.”

Alex, for all he cares so much about so many things, is absolute shit at taking care of himself.

“Alex,” John starts, but Alex’s eyes cut to the side.

“Can we not have this conversation tonight?” he says. “Please.”

If the bags under Alex’s eyes and the anxious fidgeting of his hands at his sides are any indication, talking about it tonight won’t do much good anyway.

“Fine,” John says, but he won’t forget — and he knows Alex knows he won’t.

Even now, Alex’s expression is still guarded, prepared for an argument.

John simply adjusts the knit cap on Alex’s head and says, “Don’t forget your coat, darling.”

Terms of endearment are just about the only things that can fluster Alex into compliance, and this one is no exception.

As soon as they step inside John’s apartment, Moonshadow slinks out from behind the couch to wrap around Alex’s ankles.

In the two years that cat has lived in their apartment, John has never seen her take to someone the way she has to Alex. The most Moonshadow ever deigns to interact with John is meowing impatiently at him to serve her dinner faster. And yet, John regularly enters the living room to find Moonshadow curled up on Alex’s lap.

Hercules thinks Alex secretly carries around cat treats in his pockets, but John knows the truth: Alex is just really, really good with animals. That’s one of the first things John learned about Alex the person, not Alex the student, when John was profiling him for the magazine.

One afternoon, John was watching Alex surgically implant an electrode into a mouse’s brain — a procedure that John, as an English major, could not _believe_ would be entrusted to a twenty-year-old, but was apparently something Alex did regularly.

“Grad students normally do that,” said Jefferson, a third-year PhD candidate in the Washington Lab, and the bane of Alex’s existence. “But life is _full_ of exceptions when Washington thinks you’re god’s gift to neuroscience.”

This was the first of many things that John would realize Alex’s labmates misunderstood about him. Alex wasn’t lucky Washington let him do this — Washington was lucky Alex wanted to do it. As soon as Alex began the procedure, he was calm, cool, and completely in control. Alex, who always seemed to be fidgeting or picking at himself, made incisions with exacting care. Alex, who always seemed so aggressive in casual conversation, murmured reassurances to the unconscious mouse throughout the operation. Alex, who always seemed to be racing from one task to the next, sat beside his tiny patient’s cage for the ten minutes it took to wake up.

This was the first of many things that would make John look at Alex and think, _Who are you?_

Now, Alex is someone who crouches down in John’s entryway to pet his pretentious cat.

“Good evening, Moony,” Alex says. He has a very distinctive way of talking to animals, in that he never adopts that cooing tone that most people use when addressing pets or babies. Alex greets Moonshadow like she’s a colleague or polite acquaintance.

“She missed you,” John says.

“I was just here,” Alex says, failing to hide a smile as Moonshadow arches into his palm.

“Yeah, last weekend,” John says, tugging on Alex’s backpack to make him shrug it off and pulling the coat from his shoulders. “You of all people should know that’s too long for a misunderstood genius to be left alone among the plebs.”

“I’ll read her my revised abstract for a bedtime story,” Alex says.

“Don’t you dare.” John plucks the beanie off Alex’s head and hangs it beside his coat. “You agreed no work until morning. Go shower.”

Alex stands up with Moonshadow in his arms. “Are you saying I smell?”

John elects not to mention the days-old sweatshirt. “Are _you_ saying you’re going to be able to fall asleep without showering first?”

Alex gives him a shrewd look. “I don’t remember telling you that.”

“It’s obvious.”

Alex works diligently but lives haphazardly, making what little routine he does have stand out like a lighthouse in a storm.

“Towels are in the dryer,” John says.

Alex cuddles Moonshadow’s head under his chin. She purrs loudly, as if to rub it in John’s face.

“Fine,” Alex says, like he’s the one doing John a favor, here. “Clothes I can borrow?” Like he doesn’t have his own in the backpack, right over there.

“Clean laundry in the basket beside my bed,” John says, and goes to the kitchen to defrost some of Alex’s black bean soup.

Alex doesn’t make meals for himself like a normal person. Most of what he eats on a given day comes out of a dining hall takeout box or a vending machine. So John was surprised to learn early in their friendship that Alex is actually an excellent cook. The thing is, Alex only _stress_ -cooks, and Alex stress-cooks the way he does everything: extremely productively. He doesn’t have a lot of space to work in the hall kitchen of his dorm, so since Alex started hanging out here, John, Herc and Laf’s fridge has filled up with Tupperware containers of asopao, chili, and basically whatever else Alex can make in an enormous vat on John’s stove.

If he ever remembered to take much of it home, Alex could overwhelm Burr with revenge leftovers.

John is idly stirring a pot of soup and scrolling through Reddit when he hears the shower shut off twenty minutes later.

Alex takes his showers long and scalding. Like, _set John’s smoke detector off with steam the first time he showered in the apartment_ , kind of long and scalding. John has never asked about it, because he knows Alex would hear the question as a backhanded request to take shorter showers. But Alex has made enough comments here and there — like about how the water isn’t hot enough until he can’t hear himself think — that give John a vague idea.

Amazing how many of Alex’s routines are thinly veiled self-soothing mechanisms.

When wearing socks, Alex can move through the apartment almost as quietly as Moonshadow. John startles when arms wrap around his waist and Alex’s forehead presses against his shoulder. John recognizes the sleeves of another one of his own — clean — sweatshirts. He rests a hand over Alex’s. “Better?”

Alex nods against John’s shoulder. He gets quieter after showers, like the act of bathing expunges some of the jittery energy right out of him.

“This is almost ready,” John says. “Want to watch something?”

Alex considers. John waits.

“ _Next Generation_?”

John grins. Alex doesn’t watch a lot of TV, by nature. But John is gradually persuading him of the benefits of mindless activity for at least thirty minutes before trying to sleep. Alex doesn’t have the patience for sitcom laugh tracks or the plastic problems of reality stars — and he can’t watch crime shows because he tends to solve the mystery himself halfway through an episode and lose interest. He likes cooking competitions, but John refuses to spend an hour listening to both Gordon Ramsey _and_ Alex yell at contestants.

_Star Trek_ , John has discovered, strikes the right balance between something that Alex feels is worth his time and something he can just take along for the ride.

John ladles out a bowl of soup and hands it to Alex. “Cue it up while I load the dishwasher?”

Alex takes his soup. “You’re not having any?”

“I ate dinner at dinnertime.”

“Asshole,” Alex says with a fond smile. “Thanks.”

Alex leans in to give John a quick kiss on the cheek before ducking out of the room.

When John met Alex, he never would have thought he’d describe anything about Alex as _shy_. But when it comes to showing affection, that’s kind of the only word for it. Alex is happy to hold John’s hand or cuddle into his side on the couch or kiss him, but Alex is rarely the first one to reach out — like he still isn’t totally sure he’s allowed.

“ _I can’t believe you want to date me_ ,” he said, when John asked him out.

That sentiment wasn’t entirely unfamiliar to John. Being asexual meant that John had entered into all his past relationships with full knowledge that he and his partner were fundamentally incompatible in at least one way. But that wasn’t what Alex meant — not least because Alex, being ace himself, was sort of perfect for John in a way that none of his past partners ever had been. What Alex meant — what he never explicitly said, but made clear through context clues — was that he found it hard to believe someone could like him enough to date him.

John wasn’t surprised, exactly. He knew well by then how Alex saw himself, and how stubborn Alex could be, and that the only way to deal with either of those things was gentle persistence. Like how John kept inviting Alex over to the apartment until he wasn’t nervous to visit anymore. Look how that turned out: John was woken up at three a.m. two Saturdays ago by the sound of his insomniac boyfriend making pancakes and frying plantains for his two drunk roommates.

Alex quickly got used to some of the novelties of being in a relationship. It didn’t take much convincing to get Alex to sleep in John’s bed, rather than on the couch, when he crashed at the apartment. And Alex has been stealing John’s clothes since before they started dating. But Alex being the one to kiss John first is still rare enough that each one ignites a victorious warmth in John’s chest.

In John’s room, Alex is sitting against the headboard, computer on his lap and empty soup bowl on the bedside table. He flips the duvet down for John to crawl in beside him.

“Which episode are we on?” John says, looping an arm around Alex to draw him closer.

Alex snuggles into John’s side and hits play. “Seventeen.”

Despite John’s insistence that the first season of _Star Trek: The Next Generation_ is entirely skippable, Alex is a completionist who insists on watching the series start to finish.

As Picard launches into his captain’s log, John pulls out his phone.

“I thought we agreed no work until tomorrow,” Alex says, without looking away from the screen.

“Not working. Checking email.”

“Any word on the essay contest?”

John’s inbox finishes loading. “No.”

John knows, realistically, that the winners of the semesterly student writing contest won’t be announced until the professors judging the competition are done grading exams. But that hasn’t stopped John from compulsively checking his email every few hours, just in case.

“Don’t worry about it,” Alex says, which is rich coming from someone who chews his own nails so relentlessly that he’s currently wearing SpongeBob Band-Aids on two fingertips. “I’d bet the grade on my O-chem exam that you placed.”

John smirks. “Yeah, but you could pass the class even if you failed the exam.”

Alex smirks. “I’d bet my O-chem exam you placed, even if I could fail the class.”

John is touched, but, “You haven’t read what the other people in my senior seminar submitted.”

“But I read yours, and it was awesome,” Alex says.

“It was _okay_ ,” John says.

“Hey.” Alex pauses _Star Trek_ and turns a sharp look on John. “That’s my boyfriend’s work you’re talking about.”

Alex’s cheeks go red at the word “boyfriend,” but his tone is defiant. That classic Alexander Hamilton _I’m right and I will fight you about it_ voice.

John’s heart squeezes, and he hooks a hand around the back of Alex’s neck to pull him in for a kiss.

Alex goes absolutely still, the way he always does in the split second after their lips touch, before kissing back. His pulse races beneath the pad of John’s thumb as he tilts his chin up into the kiss. Always as nervous as he is eager for closeness.

John will always delight in seeing Alex at his most fiery — raging against the university’s plan to build a new stadium right after cutting student summer research funds, or jumping up from his chair in savage triumph after wrangling a particularly gnarly algorithm into finally working.

But the moments with Alex that John treasures most are warm and soft and sweet. The moments when Alex abandons all pretense of solitary prodigy and allows John to be close to him in a way no one else ever has. Trusts John to be close and not hurt him.

Alex’s trust is such a fragile thing, and John has never tried to handle anything else as carefully as this.

John traces his fingers along Alex’s jaw, and Alex makes a soft noise that floods John’s entire body with liquid warmth. He smiles against Alex’s mouth and cradles the side of Alex’s face with his hand — trying, as always, to impress upon Alex, with his lips and his fingertips, how much Alex is wanted. 

When John pulls back, Alex’s cheeks are flushed, eyes a little hazy, breath heavy. And John gets to revel, once again, in the fact that he’s probably the only person in the world who has ever rendered Alexander Hamilton absolutely speechless.

John tucks Alex’s hair behind his ear and brushes his thumb across Alex’s cheek. “Thanks, babe,” he says, for the pleasure of watching Alex blush harder than he already is.

Alex, apparently unsure what else to do with himself, dips his head down onto John’s shoulder, grumbling, “It was a good fucking essay, is all I’m saying.”

It’s a good thing Alex isn’t looking, because John grins like an absolute idiot. For all the problems that Alex’s bluntness and perfectionism can cause, they do have one pretty significant perk: John never has to wonder whether Alex is just saying something to spare John’s feelings.

If Alex says the essay was good, it was fucking _good_.

John squeezes Alex’s hip, rests his cheek on Alex’s head, and hits play on _Star Trek_.

The show does a good job of mostly putting Alex to sleep. Alex barely lifts a hand in greeting when Laf pokes his head in to tell John that he and Herc are home, and he’s dozing on John’s shoulder by the time the credits roll.

“One more?” Alex mumbles when John moves to close the laptop. He doesn’t even open his eyes, apparently fighting sleep out of sheer habit.

“We have to be back in the library in — ” John checks the clock. “ — less than five hours.”

“Your point?”

“Some of us require more than two hours of sleep to function.”

“Weak,” Alex teases, even as he peels himself off John to curl up on his side.

John sets a series of alarms on his phone, switches the light off, and lies down.

He’s on the brink of sleep when Alex says — quietly, like he’s half-hoping he won’t be heard, “Sorry for being an asshole in the library.”

Alex isn’t great at apologies. John gets the sense that he hasn’t had a lot of practice with them. And when he does deliver them, he waits for an opportunity when absolutely no eye contact can be involved.

John wants to roll onto his side to face Alex, but forces himself to stay still. “It’s okay. I know you were stressed.”

“’s no excuse to be an asshole to you,” Alex says, mostly into his pillow.

“Then I guess you’re lucky that you’re very cute and I like you a lot, so I forgive you.”

John feels Alex curl up tighter against the compliment. John wants to hold him.

“Probably can’t say the same for Angelica,” Alex says. “I’m pretty sure she hates me.”

John has it on good (Eliza’s) authority that Angelica not only thinks Alex is very cute, but also that she likes him — or at least respects him. She’s been running both the student newspaper and magazine since sophomore year and has applied her journalism–poly sci double major at internships with _WashPo_ and _NYT_ for the last two summers, so. Angelica Schuyler knows a little something about wild ambition.

“She understands the _Nature Biotech_ paper is important,” John says.

“Does she even know what _Nature_ is?”

“I told her it’s like the _New Yorker_ of scientific journals.”

Alex snorts. “Nice.”

Since they seem safely past the apology part of this conversation, John turns on his side to face Alex. It’s hard to discern his expression in the dark, but John can just make out the outline of a tired smile.

“Thanks for tonight,” Alex murmurs. “I didn’t realize — ” He swallows. “ — how, uh. Bad I’d gotten. Sorry.”

John’s heart wrings. Given Alex’s ability to hyperfixate, particularly on his own mistakes, this conversation risks undoing all the relaxation they’ve accomplished since leaving the library. He picks up Alex’s hand from where it’s lying between them and laces their fingers together.

“I already said I forgive you,” John says, and pulls their linked hands closer to brush his lips across Alex’s knuckles. “Don’t beat yourself up about it, okay?”

Alex is silent. 

“Okay?” John presses.

Alex exhales. “Okay,” he says quietly, voice thick.

“I’m really not mad, so you don’t get to be mad for me.” John kisses Alex’s knuckles again. “I’m sorry you were so stressed. You could have told me.”

Alex lifts one shoulder and lets it drop. “You were busy.”

“You still could have told me.”

There’s a pause just long enough for John to notice before Alex says, “Oh.”

And — _honestly_ , John thinks, scooting forward to gather Alex up in his arms.

Alex emits a surprised, undignified squeak, but quickly settles against John’s chest, face tucked under John’s chin and hands fisted in the soft fabric of John’s shirt.

“You can always tell me,” John murmurs into Alex’s hair. “I _want_ you to tell me.”

Alex takes a couple seconds to process this before nodding.

John kisses the crown of Alex’s head and rubs his back. “Good. Seems only fair, if you have to hear me complain about Murdoc all the damn time.”

John has the great misfortune of T.A.ing for Professor Murdoc, whose homework consists almost entirely of worksheets, and whose classes consist almost entirely of PowerPoints about the assigned reading. The fifteen dollars an hour John is getting paid to T.A. her ENG 110 is nowhere near enough to watch a woman actively make dozens of freshmen hate English.

“That’s because Murdoc’s class is a crime against pedagogy,” Alex says darkly.

John bites back a smile. Alex does not simply indulge venting. If he agrees with it, he immediately takes up arms against the offending party — usually with a lot more fervor than John himself. John just barely talked Alex out of sending a formal letter of complaint to the English department last month.

It’s nice that Alex dislikes Murdoc as much as John does. And John will always take a self-righteous Alex over a self-deprecating one, but neither is particularly conducive to sleep.

John pulls back just far enough to kiss Alex’s forehead. “Turn over.”

“Why?”

John rolls his eyes. “You know why.” He nudges Alex’s shoulder. “Come on.”

Alex gives an exaggerated sigh as he flips onto his other side, like this is a massive inconvenience, but John knows better. He knows this is the fastest way to get Alex to sleep.

John wraps an arm around Alex to pull Alex’s back against his chest. He presses a kiss into the nape of Alex’s neck and feels more than hears the catch in Alex’s breath. After a moment, Alex’s hand comes up to cover John’s over his stomach, and John interlocks their fingers. Alex exhales deeply, allowing some of his last tension to unravel.

There, just like that. John could hold Alex here forever.

“Goodnight, sweetheart,” he says, right behind Alex’s ear. One last good thing to send off with him to sleep.

Alex pulls John’s arm tighter around him and gives his hand a brief, tight squeeze. “Night, John.”

**Author's Note:**

> thank you as always to sevenimpossiblethings for indulging me, and loving the post-it note boy as much as i do, and for your patience as i vacillated twelve hundred times on the MadUndergradScientist!Hamilton AU format :)
> 
> Come hang out with me on [Tumblr](https://agreatperhaps12.tumblr.com) <3


End file.
